[NOTE: Yvo posted his message in "povray.bugreports". I posted my reply
here, because it is really off-topic for that group, and I didn't want to
clutter the bug-reports with it...]

smellenbergh wrote in message
<1dl### [at] dialup22leuvenskynetbe>...
>Looks like file names are causing problems on Macintosh, and perhaps
>other platforms too (all platforms allowing spaces as first character in
>file names).
>
>We are aware that this is more an inconvenience than realy a bug but we
>might have a solution.
>
>For example if your input file is ' scene.pov' (notice the space in
>front) POV-Ray is unable to find that file because while parsing the
>option 'Input_File= scene.pov', the space is thrown away.
>
>Why not not change the option parser in a way that options can be
>enclosed like this:
>Input_File=" scene.pov" and Version="3.1" ,......
>
>Or perhaps allowing it only for library paths, input files, output
>files, ..... all options relating to file names.
>If an option is enclosed, the parser should take *all* characters,
>including spaces.
>
>Would it be hard to implement?
>
>Yvo Smellenbergh
>

I don't know about this "bug" and it's fix, I am just curious:

Regardless of if the OS allows a leading space or not: Why would anyone in
his right mind would want to use a leading space in a filename? This looks
to me like inviting problems in more areas than only POV-ray - even if the
OS handles the filenames correctly, humans will *very* easily make mistakes
because it will be so easy to miss the leading space.
Seems just as bad a practice to me as using *several* leading spaces
(imagine, with a proportional font, the fun of "guessing" how many spaces
you have to type to replicate a filename! ;-) or even worse: one or several
*trailing* spaces (and no ".*" fileextension of course, which could spoil
the fun of guessing the number of trailing spaces!)

Well, as said, I am curious. After all, there may be valid reasons... Any
suggestions?

Johannes.

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